


It is in the name

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Category: Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: LATER, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: The book places Elio and Oliver's last meeting twenty years after that summer.Six months later, Elio is invited to dinner at Oliver's and his wife's house.





	It is in the name

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [È nel nome](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13758564) by [Hotaru_Tomoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe). 



The weather is strangely pleasant tonight, warm to the point I have to take off my jacket and put it on my shoulder.

A gust of wind sweeps away the smell of smog and, if I close my eyes, in an instant I'm back to B., between the chirping of cicadas, the smell of bougainvillea and lavender, and the rhythmic noise of the waves of the sea.

But as soon as I open my eyes again, I find myself here, on the sidewalk in front of his house, which seems to come out of a interior design magazine.

The radio of the cars passing along the road don’t play _Karma Chameleon_ or _I like Chopin_ anymore, but _If I ain’t got you_.

I'm not sure that accepting his invitation was a good idea: six years ago I told him that I didn’t feel like meeting his family, because I still felt a grudge winding inside me.

Six years later the feeling hasn’t changed, so I probably shouldn’t be here.

When Oliver invited me to his house and insisted that I accept, the first feeling that bloomed inside of me was irritation.

 _"Why are you doing this to me? You know I don’t want to do it,"_ I wanted to tell him.

Maybe I should have been wearing his blue shirt and swimsuit, the red one: how would Oliver feel, opening the door and seeing me in that shirt? What would have happened if, when I sat down at the table, I had made him glimpse the edge of the swimsuit?

Would he take it as a silent accusation? A revenge? Or would he have been frightened, fearing that I would reveal something to his wife?

But it would have been too cruel, after twenty-one years, and certainly very childish, to the point that I swear I’m hearing Oliver's voice in my ears, _"Grow up."_

Grow up... I realize that, in some ways, I've never really done that: sometimes I'm still that seventeen year old boy who spent his summers transcribing music.

My life has gone on, it hasn’t been half bad, and I have had my experiences, I have reached my goals, but this evening I feel like I have been living in a coma for all these years.

But maybe I shouldn’t complain and be content with what I have: it has been fifteen years before we met again, then five, and now only six months. It seems that the more time passes, the more our meetings are increasing in number. I would like to have the power to manipulate time to my whims, and peek into the future to see if it’s really like this, and if it were, I would immediately jump into that future, not caring about the hours of life I would lose.

It's getting late, and in my ears I can almost hear Mafalda's voice rumbling, because it's rude to show up late at dinner: _"The food is cooling down,"_ she would say.

I ring the bell and it's Oliver who opens the door.

"Finally, I was starting to think you got lost."

"Maybe, a little bit, in my head," I answer slowly, shrugging.

"Welcome, Oliver" he says slowly, and the surprise is such that the bottle of sparkling wine that I hold in my hand, almost slips through my fingers.

The memory of our first night together, of his words, resurfaces powerfully inside me.

Why now, after all these years?

I was worried about being cruel, when he is the one without mercy, who uses that memory as a weapon, while I am on the threshold of his other life, the life he has lived in these years and that I have never known.

Yet, a force that I can’t resist pushes me to respond in a whisper, "Elio."

"Mr. Perlman!"

A shrill female voice interrupts that moment, and she steps forward to shake my hand.

I smile and bend my head slightly.

"I repeated to Oliver for months that we had to invite you to return the favor, but he is always so lazy. I really must apologize."

Now I understand: it wasn’t Oliver who insisted on this dinner, it was her. I look into her eyes, but I see nothing but courtesy in them. She doesn’t know, doesn’t imagine anything, she just wanted to be polite and kind, of that sort of kindness that is due in certain social environments.

I offer give her the bottle of wine.

"I didn’t know if you preferred red or white, so I opted for a sparkling wine."

"Oh, an Italian wine is always appreciated."

She is curious, but not intrusive. During dinner, she asks me about my work and my family, she offers me condolences for the death of my father (she has heard only beautiful things about him), with the courtesy required with a newly-known person.

Oliver speaks a few times, but I feel his eyes on me throughout the dinner, especially when I look around to steal some details of their married life.

There isn’t a bad atmosphere in this house, it's cozy, bright, clean, it conveys the idea that the people who live there are fine.

Obviously my mind runs to our villa in B., and it is impossible for me to refrain from making a comparison.

The atmosphere is similar, but not the same, here you breathe something that is more like habit than affection, it’s smells like the indulgence built on living together day after day.

There was passion once, but now I can’t perceive it.

Or maybe, it's just what I want to believe.

The dinner ends, and Oliver starts to get up from the table, but she puts a hand on his arm.

"Honey, the Birkat Hamazon," she remembers him, softly but firmly.

I see a flash of Oliver's life, of this woman's family, and probably of his family: this is the world around him.

The same world he had around him twenty-one years ago, out of the bubble of that summer.

Now I think I understand him a little better, and if I could go back in time, I would say to the seventeen years old me to be more lenient with him.

After a few other trivial chat, I glance at my watch, and say the excuse I had prepared before coming here: _it's late, I have to get up early tomorrow, I'd better go_.

They get up and take me to the door, where Oliver puts a hand on my shoulder.

"I was pleased to see you again, Oliver.”

I gasp and look at him giddily: has he gone mad?

Yet again, an irresistible force pushes me to respond with my name, Elio.

"What's this?" She asks.

I bite my lips, inside of me I'm trembling and I hardly look at her.

Is it the showdown? Is she going to make a scene?

Yet she seems really completely unaware of the power of this moment, and she’s still smiling.

Is it possible... is it possible that she doesn’t know?

I turn my head abruptly towards Oliver, and I see him smile with the same cheeky boldness with which he touched my foot under the table, in the garden of my parents' house in B., while we sat for dinner, surrounded by my relatives and guests.

He replies sweetly: "It was a thing between us: I called Elio with my name, and he callend me with his. Call it male camaraderie, if you want."

She shakes her head and laughs: "You were really two kids."

My head is spinning.

I bring a hand under my nose, fearing it’s bleeding, just like then.

She doesn’t know.

She was never called by her name.

I am in a cozy, bright and clean house, whose inhabitants have lived a fine life, where there is affection and domesticity, but where she has never been called by her name.

"Oh God, do you feel sick? Suddenly you became pale!" She asks, worried.

"No... no... maybe I had a little too much wine, I'm not used to it."

"I’ll accompany him," Oliver tells her.

"No need,” I answer, shrugging. “I'll get better breathing some fresh air, and the hotel is not far away."

"Exactly, it's not a problem."

"Of course, it's better if you go with him."

"Bye," he greets her briefly as she closes the door behind her.

So, she has never even heard his _'later'_ , which contains much of the essence of this man.

"Are you going to throw up? I have to warn you, the policemen in this neighborhoods are less lenient than the ones in Rome."

"No, no, I'm better now."

"I’m sorry, I didn’t imagine it would have affect you so much."

"I still have your shirt," I let him know, and his pace slows slightly.

"I see. Forgive me, I didn’t want to upset you," he whispers, and, in a flash, I see again the same sweetness he had toward me that summer, a sweetness that surrounds me and penetrates in my blood and my tissues.

"No,” I reassure him, “I understand."

Oliver knew that it hasn’t been easy for me to come here tonight, he really feared that I thought it was just to show off his nice life, and he wanted to make me understand that the names thing has always been ours and nobody else's, and it will be forever.

Even if we lived in a coma, we didn’t forget, and that summer has never lost its importance.

We don’t talk to each other until we are in sight of my hotel.

"Do you still stay a few days more?"

I nod: "Until Saturday."

"All right, then maybe... later," Oliver exclaims, in the same hasty tone of the past.

Later, his way to get away from something he doesn’t want to face.

Later, because no one would bear a 'goodbye'.

Later, which implies a vague yet fragile promise.

Twenty-one years have passed since that 'later', and perhaps, if I hadn’t come to his house tonight, twenty-one more would have been passed before seeing him again.

But now I can’t do it again, not after having learned that in that house, where once there was passion, but now there is only affection, she has never been called by her name.

Maybe it's time to wake up from that coma.

Therefore, as he is about to turn around, I grab him by the elbow and say, "No, now."

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike the Christians, who pray (if they pray) before starting to eat, Jews have the Birkat Hamazon, a prayer recited at the end of the meal.


End file.
